Posts Tagged ‘delta’

What a snowstorm didn’t accomplish directly, it managed to get done anyway by slicking up a runway.

The storm warnings began already on Wednesday, with meteorologists telling travelers that Thursday would likely be wet and white. By Thursday morning, New York’s LaGuardia International Airport was all but paralyzed as snow and ice turned the runways into skating rinks. Freezing rain, thick fog and a slick surface faced the pilot on Delta Flight #1086 as he approached the snowy airport.

As the landing gear touched down and the wheels tried to lock on to the runway, passengers told television viewers on CNN they felt the plane slide to the left, veering off the runway upon its arrival from Atlanta, Georgia around 11 am local time.

The aircraft ground into a snowbank after having smashed through a security fence, finally coming to a halt just a few feet away from the water.

Port Authority executive director Patrick Foye said the runway had been plowed shortly before the incident.

The flight carried 127 passengers in addition to five crew members. At least 24 people were slightly injured in the crash; three were taken to an area hospital. A fuel leak on the left wing of the plane was stopped by fire crews.

Two runways were shut down immediately; as of 9 pm local time, only one runway was operational in the airport.

Nearly 900 flights were canceled and travelers with flights either departing from or arriving at LaGuardia were advised to check their flight status before setting out.

Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to escort two passenger jets into Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport – one of the largest airports in the world — at 3 pm local time Saturday.

The move came in response to what was deemed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to be “credible” bomb threats on the Twitter social media site.

Airport spokesman Reese McCranie told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “We believe the threats to be credible,” but declined to explain why.

“While authorities have not yet released information on the Twitter account responsible for the specific threatening tweets, someone calling himself ‘King Zortic’ first posted messages to Delta on Twitter around noon that said, ‘I have a bomb on one of your planes, but I forgot which one when I left the airport. Can you help me find it?,’ and ‘It was from Portland to Atlanta, I forgot the flight number, though. It was something like DL156 or DL1556 I forgot the order.’

“Another tweet read, ‘It was smuggled through one of the back entrances because the airport didn’t have much security around one of the entrances so the bomb is at the back of the plane. Everyone will know when it’s detonated.’

“Messages later were sent to Southwest Airlines from the same Twitter account read (sic), ‘A bomb was placed on SWA2492. It will be detonated at a random time of my choosing,’ and ‘If anything happens to me I’ll make sure that more flights are targeted. I strongly suggest you don’t try anything stupid,’” the newspaper reported.

In Atlanta, the two targeted flights taxied to a remote area once they had landed. Southwest Airlines Flight 2492 from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Atlanta and Delta Flight 1156 from Portland, Oregon to Atlanta were then both swept by bomb squad units and K-9 teams after passengers deplaned.

Passengers from the two flights were questioned and their luggage was searched by bomb-sniffing dogs.

The two fighter jets that were scrambled from McEntire Joint National Guard Base in South Carolina returned to base after the planes landed.

Following extensive searches and screening, airport officials wrote in a tweet: “All clear for both aircraft & normal airport operations have resumed. Thank you for your patience. Safety & security are our top priorities.”

Britt Johnson, Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta FBI Field Office told media the FBI will “absolutely be doing everything we can to identify who made the initial threats and track them down.”

Bomb threats that turned out to be false alarms were also made in recent days against Delta flights headed for Tel Aviv and for Raleigh, North Carolina.

A group of Haredi Jews have claimed that Delta Airlines tried to cover up their own mistake of overbooking and instead blamed Haredim for a 75-minute delay in take-off, according to the Kikar Shabbat Haredi website.

As reported here on Wednesday, several Haredim left the plane after the airline crew refused to allow them to sit in unassigned seats to avoid having to travel next to someone of the opposite sex.

That is not the what happened, claimed travelers who spoke with Kikar Shabbat.

“The airline messed up and threw their mistake on Haredi passengers,” one of the sources said. “Delta overbooked with 25 extra passengers, and when the company realized the embarrassment, they offered people a credit of $1,000 and a hotel room. A number of passengers jumped on the opportunity and disembarked, but it took around two hours before they could get their luggage off the plane.”

The source also claimed that the allegation that Haredim refused to sit in assigned seats is misleading because the overbooking caused a mix-up on where to sit. Yeshiva students on the plane wanted to sit with their friends and probably did not want to sit next to women, but this was no reason for the take-off to be delayed, they argued.

Several passengers who talked with Kikar Shabbat said they were prepared to go to court to defend the Haredim. “It appears that Delta goofed and decided to place all of the blame on Haredi Jews,” they asserted.

The company stated, “Delta Airlines flight 468 from New York, which was expected to land at Ben Gurion Airport at 14:35 pm, arrived an hour and a quarter late due to passengers who alighted from the plane before take-off. We had to delay the departure of the aircraft in order to locate their luggage and return it to them. “

Haredim extremists demanding that men and women not sit next to each on the airplane again have succeeded in creating anti-Semitism as well as delaying a flight, and this time it was Delta and not El Al.

A group of Haredim boarded Flight 484 from New York to Tel Aviv on Tuesday and immediately made a commotion, according to Haaretz.

It can be safely assumed that this was not the first time in their lives they boarded an airplane so it is a bit difficult to understand why they waited to parade into the parade before starting an uproar by refusing to sit in their assigned seats, lest they be smitten on the spot for sitting next to someone of the opposite sex.

Haredi men and women participated in the spectacle. Rather than committing an unforgiveable sin that is shared by no other people in the world except for your neighborhood fanatic Muslim, they did everyone on board a favor by getting off the plane.

Takeoff was delayed for 75 minutes until their baggage could be removed.

It is not known if they will get their money back, but it would be a shame if they do not feel financial pain for their spiritual insecurity.

There is no Jewish law forbidding a man and a woman to sit next to each other in separate chairs. It is easily argued that doing so can lead to immodesty – perhaps one may touch the other when tripping over a sleepy passenger’s legs on the way to the bathroom.

So let’s give the Haredim the benefit of the doubt that they are so cautious about modesty, or so screwed up that they break out in a sweat when they sit next to someone of the same gender.

After all, if that is they want to be Jewish, let them have a good time their own way.

But they know very well that seats are assigned at the ticket counter. All they have to do is tell the airline ticket agent, “I would prefer to sit next to an Ebola patient rather than someone from the opposite you know what.”

So why a fuss on the airplane?

There can be only one answer: They really are not in a hurry to fly anywhere.

And they like creating a bad name for Jews, especially for the majority of Haredim who are normal.

But everyone on the Delta flight really should thank the extremist Haredim. After they disembarked, everyone else had a lot more leg room.

A “victory” claimed by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)-aligned blog Electronic Intifada , stating that Delta Airlines would stop serving a snack produced in Israel’s Samaria region due to a complaint by the “Coalition of Women for Peace,” has been proven false.

Although the blog’s editor, Ali Abunima, claimed that Delta Airlines lawyers “ruled that Israeli settlement-made snacks should not be served,” Israeli activist Avi Mayer got a letter from the airline saying that the snack in question, a vanilla halva bar, was only removed due to “normal” menu changes, Israel National News reported.

Furthermore, Delta said it “makes a practice of sourcing local goods for catering in most international markets we serve.”

Mayer said that when rocker Lenny Kravitz canceled a trip to Israel last year, BDS activists hailed it as a victory even though Kravitz “has said clearly that he was canceling for totally unrelated reasons.”